Skills
Leadership skills are areas of competency that can be applied to a variety
of contexts. The Center teaches leadership from a skills-development model, and
focuses that model on four main areas of leadership skill development. In each
area are specific skills and attributes essential to exercising leadership in
any environment.
Self Development
Developing perspectives, insight, and understanding about ourselves is crucial
to leadership development. We provide structure and ideas to help you develop
skills related to getting the most out of yourself.
Self-development has two main dimensions: self-awareness and self-management. 
- Developing
self-awareness involves assessing your own strengths, weaknesses, values, motivations,
passions, and your own leadership style. It helps you verbalize and prioritize
what is important to you.
- Developing self-management skills involves learning
about your own sense of integrity, initiative, accountability, adaptability,
goal setting, and wellness. It teaches you to stop and reflect on how you view
things.
The Illinois Leadership i-Program
called Illinois Insight specifically helps you work on self-development.
Interpersonal Development
Interpersonal skills are always high on the list of characteristics employers
and organizations look for in people. They are skills that will help you build
better relationships with everyone you interact with at work, at home, and in
your community. Illinois Leadership can help you communicate more effectively,
be a better team player, and understand the importance of ethical practices.
Interpersonal
development has four main dimensions: relationship
building, communication, ethical
practices, and team development.
- Developing relationship building skills involves
improving your ability to be empathetic, inclusive, impartial, and fair. It also
stresses the importance of trust in relationship building.
- Developing communication
skills is about learning how to listen. It is about effectively communicating
within cultures and between cultures in non-verbal, verbal, and written formats.
- Developing ethical practices will build your awareness and ability to empower people and
use your own power in positive ways. It will improve your decision-making and
help you exert influence in synergistic ways, as well as teach you the importance
of integrity in fostering and maintaining interpersonal relationships.
- Team development emphasizes building critical skills for use in team environments such as facilitation,
collaboration, conflict resolution, followership, compromise, and assessing group
dynamics.
The Illinois Leadership i-Program called Illinois
Intersect will help you learn about and practice interpersonal development.
Organizational and Group Development
Invariably, you are affiliated with several organizations or groups. Illinois
Leadership® is committed to providing opportunities that encourage development
of skills that will make you a better group member, organizational participant,
or employee.
Organizational and group development has four main dimensions: leading
change, project and program effectiveness,
system thinking, and community
building.
- Developing
skills in leading change is critical to your future as well as the future of
others. We live in a dynamic world that demands skills such as visioning, creativity,
risk-taking, personal resiliency, and modeling in everything we do. We all recognize
the value of leading change rather than being left behind.
- Developing skills in
project and program effectiveness are vital to the success of any organization.
We can help you develop your ability to organize, budget, plan, delegate, and
continuously improve. Because organizations are made up of people, it is important
to recognize accomplishment, celebrate success, retain valuable human assets,
document progress, and assess the impact of variables that affect your organization.
- Developing
systems thinking skills can enhance your ability to analyze the complexity of
organizational environments. It can also help you develop perspectives in critical
thinking and build competencies in assessing the affect of environmental factors
on your organization. It can help you understand how politics play a part in
organizational contexts and even show you how to use technology.
- Developing community
building skills is inherent to any organization, because every organization is
a community of people. Illinois Leadership can help you learn more about citizenship,
cultural understanding, and coalition building.
The Illinois Leadership i-Program
called Illinois Ignite can help you work on organizational and group development
skills.
Transitional Development
Transitions happen continuously
throughout our lives. Graduating from college. Getting a job. Building a career.
Getting involved in clubs, organizations, and civic groups. Discovering new places,
people, and ideas.
- Transitional leadership skills help you make the most out of
your transitions. It will also help you contribute in the best way possible to
your family, coworkers, employees, friends, and people you have never even met.
- Transitional
leadership has one main dimension. Sustaining
leadership. Developing sustaining
leadership skills will help you realize your goals. More importantly, it will
help others reach their goals.
- Sustaining leadership is about networking with
others and making sure that perpetual learning is available to all of us. It
is about coaching, developing
others, and mentoring. It is about sharing experiences,
knowledge, and insight.
The Illinois
Leadership® i-Program called Illinois Imprint will develop sustaining leadership.
